breathe

Out of all the decisions in this world we have control over, there is definitely one whole category of our lives we can’t predict, manage, or bullet point.

No matter how organized we get, how much we plan, how prepared we are for what might come, one thing we can always count on is that the people in our life will surprise us, delight us, disappoint us, overwhelm us, or confuse us.

We can manage our time, our work, and our agendas but we cannot manage relationships. At least, not if we want them to be healthy.

How do we move forward in love? How can we discern a next right step with the people in our lives when they can be so unpredictable and. . . people-y?

For anyone who wants to remember some basic but often overlooked foundational truths about relating with people, I give you this — A Soul Minimalist’s Guide to Relationships.

Release your agenda.

Why is this one so simple and so hard!?

When one of our girls experienced a profound disappointment in her life (she was in fourth grade so gauge your imagination accordingly), I struggled as her mom to balance wanting to teach her a lesson and just wanting to be with her.

It’s true, learning is good and disappointments are an opportunity for growth. But I’ve grown weary of trying to squeeze a lesson out of everything, of always asking what God is trying to teach me in every circumstance, of seeing the world through lesson-colored glasses and forcing struggling people to do that, too.

Instead, when it comes to discerning your next right thing in relationships, releasing your agenda is a good place to start.

Let’s practice walking into the great mystery of God. Let’s practice encountering Jesus as a person and not a character. Let’s practice releasing our agenda to perform, perfect, and prioritize. Let’s live this day as a daughter first and allow the student to tag along behind.

Look for arrows, not answers.

So often, the questions we have in life that give us trouble aren’t the daily ones like what to wear, what to eat, when to mow the grass (although these can become burdensome if we’re already struggling with decision fatigue).

In my experience, the situations where I most desperately want an answer are the ones that are the hardest to find. These usually have to do with things like faith, vocation, and relationships.

My husband John and I went through a vocational transition about five years ago. No only did we not have answers, every question we asked seemed to birth more questions. What we discovered over that several year-long transition was we were looking for the wrong thing.

Rather than a specific plan, God offered us his hand and led us not to clear answers but simply back to one another. It was one of the most life-changing periods of our lives and it didn’t come from a five step agenda but from listening and looking for arrows to our next right step.

“Sometimes the circumstances at hand force us to be braver than we actually are, and so we knock on doors and ask for assistance. Sometimes not having any idea where we’re going works out better than we could possibly have imagined.” — Ann Patchett, What Now?

Come home to yourself.

As difficult as it may be to admit, sometimes it’s easier to focus on every relationship except the one I’m guaranteed to have for the rest of my living life – the one between me and myself. It doesn’t seem right since we are already so good at thinking of ourselves first, wondering what people are thinking of us, and basically being our own point of reference in all situations.

Maybe relief from selfishness won’t be found in denying ourselves the way we tend to think of it, but to finally become ourselves the way we were intended to be. Not the false, try-hard, self-referential version, but the true, free self who is created in the image of God.

The only person you’re guaranteed to be with every day of your life is you. So maybe it’s time to make some peace. You don’t have to fly apart in the midst of chaos. You can learn to sit down on the inside and be at home with yourself instead.

“It’s a wild and wonderful thing to bump into someone and realize it’s you.”

Choose connection.

When it comes to relating with people, whether it’s family or strangers, how we enter a room can mean the difference between connecting with them or comparing ourselves to them. If I walk in and immediately wonder, What are they thinking of me? then I have automatically made comparison a top priority.

Contrary to what we often say about connection and chemistry, the truth is connection doesn’t normally just happen. We have to actively choose to set aside our own insecurities and move toward people without an agenda or a measuring stick.

“If your life is a constant blur of activity, focus, and obligation, you are likely to miss critical breakthroughs because you won’t have the benefit of pacing and negative space. What’s not there will impact your life as much or more than what is.”

I do not have power sheets to offer (love those!), an innovative planner to present (though I want to create this one day), or a webinar to teach you about goal-setting (though I’ve attended at least two of those in the last year).

What I do have is time management for your soul.

Most time saving tips focus on your schedule and we need those. But that’s not why you come here.

My self-appointed job in this space is to help you create space for your soul to breathe so that you can discern your next right thing in love.

These tips might not show up on your calendar but they could help on the more invisible level of your soul.

When we are overwhelmed, it’s easy to become distracted and stuck in false starts. It’s the fast-track to decision fatigue and I want to help get you out of it.

It’s counter-intuitive, but what I often need most when I’m in a rush is to slow down. It helps me think better, discern better, and gently take just one next right step instead of tripping over twenty.

Allow me to help you slow for a few moments so that you can pay attention to what’s happening beneath the surface.

This will inform your decisions and in turn, eventually, your schedule as well.

Choose Your Absence

I’m all about being a person of presence. But we can’t be present to everything all the time.

One way to learn to cultivate presence might sound at first, counter intuitive. It’s actually by your absence.

Not your absence from people or responsibility, but absence from the things that are keeping you from your people and your responsibilities.

One thing you could choose your absence from is anything that comes your way disguised as “a great opportunity.”

For many of us the beginning of the year can be a time when we all get high on hope, searching the horizon for what might be next.

Living attentive and paying attention is one of my favorite ways to live, but I’ve discovered if I do it in the wrong order by going outward before I move inward, then I may add to the stress and distraction in my life in ways I never intended to do.

“The biggest deception of our digital age may be the lie that says we can be omni-competent, omni-informed, and omni-present. We must choose our absence, our inability, and our ignorance–and choose wisely.”

Ignore With Intention

If your schedule is already so full that you’re having a hard time even making simple decisions, you probably already recognize the fact that there are a lot of things in your schedule that fall under the column of things you can’t control.

But can we agree that your Instagram feed and your phone notifications are not included in that column?

I mention this because in my season of life right now, the anxiety triggers that cause the most frustration come mostly from a screen either a computer screen like something I read in my email inbox, or on a blog or on Facebook, a TV screen, something I see on the news, or a phone screen like instagram, voxer, or a text message.

For those of us who work online for example like I do, turning off the computer or phone completely isn’t always an option. But there are simple and practical ways to cut down on the low-grade anxiety that is showing up in your feeds and follows.

“The first step to crafting the life you want is getting rid of everything you don’t.”

Find a No Mentor

What do you do when your schedule is full and you have things waiting in the wings? How do you decide your yeses from your nos? Sometimes you can make a list and other times you can sleep on it.

But some decisions you’re too close to and can’t see the better from the best. That’s why you need a No Mentor, someone who will help you say your strong no so that you can be more available for your brave and intentional yeses.

My sister is the original No Mentor (she even coined the phrase for us) and she is a profesh. This doesn’t mean you have to get her to be your No Mentor, though. You can find someone in your own life to do that for you. And eventually, you can learn to be your own.

“May you be blessed with good friends, and learn to be a good friend to yourself, journeying to that place in your soul where there is love, warmth, and feeling. May this change you.”

Embrace Your Limits

There’s something uniquely discouraging about finally knowing what you want to do and where you feel most called only to run into a roadblock. Often these roadblocks present themselves as some kind of limitation – fatigue, heartbreak, time, money, or support.

Instead of fighting those, perhaps your next right thing is to embrace them instead. Because our limits tell us important things about ourselves.

They help us draw lines for margin.

They pave the way for vulnerability.

They show us what we aren’t able to do and that can be just as important as what we are able to do.

We confess our desire to light up our worlds with our own abilities, smarts, and accomplishments. May we have the courage to revisit our associations with the word small. May we be willing to change our minds about it, to decide to fold ourselves into it rather than run fast away.

Last week I mostly felt normal and good and fine during the day, but when I settled down to read or try to sleep at night, there it was: my loud, pounding heart.

I googled “heart pounding loud” more times than I want to admit to you. But it’s because I kept looking for a different answer than the one I was getting.

All signs pointed to anxiety.

I didn’t feel anxious, couldn’t point to a reason why my heartbeat sounded like a drumbeat. But sometimes our bodies know things before our minds can catch up, and I feel sure my heart was trying to tell me something.

When my insides start to hum with that familiar low-grade buzz, it’s a sure sign for me that my soul is being held under the thumb of hustle once again.

I don’t want this to be normal.

But first, a word about hustle.

I believe hustle can be a good thing.

As a writer, my ability to hustle is both a gift and a skill I’ve learned over time. I would never have finished a book without it, not to mention four of them. I would not be able to keep up a blog for the past 11 years, co-run an active membership site, or get dinner on the table at night.

The problem for me comes when the healthy hustle energy needed to finish specific tasks morphs into a general state of low-grade anxiety even in the midst of non-tasks.

The line from one side to the other isn’t always easy to see.

Here are three signs you’ve crossed it.

1. You’re distracted.

The hustle hostage often comes on the tail end of a big project. You’re working hard toward a deadline and you make it! But weeks later you realize you’re treating everything like it has a deadline even though it doesn’t.

I have also experienced this after back-to-back travel, a busy weekend with houseguests, or when our routine is interrupted for an extended period of time.

To counterbalance the frenzy, I might try to do something calming like read a book. But instead of sinking into the story, I read two sentences and notice my mind wandering.

Or I’ll take a picture of the book and put it on Instagram instead of actually enjoying the book. The chronic inability to focus is a sign you may have crossed the line.

2. You lack inspiration.

When hustle has seeped into the level of my soul, I realize it most readily when I lack inspiration. I’m particularly sensitive to this because, as a writer, inspiration feels important.

To be clear, it’s maybe once a month that I write from a truly inspired place. Usually it’s more of a discipline, a walk of faith from one word to the next, trusting that because God made me a writer, he will turn my tired words into something meaningful eventually.

But when it comes to my life in general, I know hustle has taken over when I don’t feel inspired about anything.

Whether I’m in my kitchen, deciding what to wear, planning out my calendar, or having a conversation with John, if I feel unable to see the lovely, if I notice that I am only able to see the downside of everything, this is when I know hustle has too loud of a voice.

3. You have decision fatigue.

From inability to choose my meal at a restaurant to prioritizing goals and vision for my work, when hustle takes over I feel unable to make a decision.

Sometimes this feels like I’m drowning in a sea of options, as if there are so many directions I can go and I don’t know which to pick. Other times it feels like the opposite, like all my options have dried up completely and any hope for moving forward is gone.

Maybe you can relate to this distracted, grey, indecisive mindset. Maybe you are feeling it too: the rush to produce, the pull to compete, the thoughts flying fast and furious, the mad sprint toward the finish line.

I’ve got a secret for us both: that kind of race doesn’t have a finish line. It just keeps on going as long as we’re willing to run.

There have been times I’ve been tempted to compare what I’ve accomplished in the past with what I’m unable to do now.

I’ve written all these books – why can’t I manage to write this email or make this simple decision or finish this paragraph in this book?! Why can’t I keep my mind from wandering during a five minute prayer?!

That’s when I know I’ve allowed the hustle mentality to seep into more of my daily moments than is necessary.

When I feel overwhelmed in my schedule, the answer might be to organize my calendar. But when I feel overwhelmed in my soul, these kinds of rigid systems no longer work.

Because the soul and the schedule don’t follow the same rules. My soul is begging me to remember this.

“The deepest need of my soul isn’t a personal organizer or an empty inbox. The deepest need of my soul is Christ. But the problem is, I often forget where to find him.”

– Simply Tuesday

The gift of friendship with Jesus is that there is no long, meandering road back to Him. Though it may feel as though I’ve hustled my way far off the path with Him, the truth is He’s never far away. I don’t have to retrace my hurried steps to find my way to Him again.

I simply turn around and there He is, walking right with me in the weeds, finding His way with me in the darkness, ready to be enough for me in every situation.

Yesterday I did a Facebook Live on my author page sharing about these very things if you are someone who prefers listening to reading. I’ll include that video in this post so you don’t need to click over to Facebook.

Basically I shared everything I’ve said here in this post except with a lot more annoying ums and likes and you knows.

At the end (about 8 mins into it) I share one thing I do to help to hush the hustle and I hope it’s helpful to you.

For even more practical help to create space for your soul to breathe in the midst of your fast-moving world visit SimplyTuesday.com and watch a free video series I created just for you. Transcripts are provided for each video for my Deaf/HOH friends.

We have had a week around here. Y’all, it’s been two trips to the pediatric neurologist (everything’s fine, it’s all fine), every single person in our house has had a cold, we moved John’s office from one location to a different location (he has a lot of books is what I’m saying), and I’ve been preparing for a big launch next week.

Maybe you had a week too? If so, I want to offer you one simple way to take a soul breath this weekend.

Color.

I know, I know it’s a thing right now. And maybe you aren’t on the adult coloring book bandwagon but I SO AM and I just bought a bunch of new pencils for me and my big self and it’s been a delightful way to slow down, embrace my smallness, and let my soul catch up with my body.*

If you don’t have a coloring book, I have a page for you to print right here. (Simply click the image below to download).

It’s Simply Tuesday started in January 2015 as a simple hashtag on a Tuesday morning months before the book, Simply Tuesday, even released.

Now #itssimplytuesday on Instagram is like an online bench where we gather to remember that most of life happens not in brightness or in darkness, but in the medium light of our regular days.

So if you need a little extra dose of quiet this weekend, maybe you’ll want to print this page and color along with me.

For those of you who are regulars around here, I won’t be sharing weekend links this week but we’ll be back at it next week! May you find beauty and encouragement in even the smallest moments today.

Let’s Connect!

If you color this page and want to share it? Well I’d love to see it. As a thank you for sharing, we’ll choose one of you at random to receive a 30 minute call, Skype, or voxer session with me – whatever you prefer!

Maybe you’re a writer with writerly questions?

Or maybe your whole small group read Simply Tuesday and you want to have a ‘chat with the author’ night over Skype. All of you could enter and increase your chance! I’d love to meet you and your Tuesday people.

Or maybe you just want to talk about Alaska the Last Frontier and/or This is Us? I’m your girl. All the instructions are at the bottom of the coloring page you can download right here: Its Simply Tuesday – Coloring Page.

At the end of the letter I sent out to readers a few weeks ago (you can sign up to get those letters right here), I asked this question: Over the next four weeks, what do you feel like you need more than anything?

No one said they need stocking stuffer ideas for their teen girls.

No one said they need inspiration for their dining room table setting.

Of course, those things are lovely and fun and may even be good.

It struck me, though, that no one said they needed a bigger, better, more efficient, more impressive, more established anything.

When I asked you what you needed during the Advent season more than anything else, the answer was unanimous.

Peace.

Oh, it was packaged differently. Some said they long for connection and clarity in the midst of difficult family relationships.

Others said they craved a quiet space and a slower pace.

Focus.

Rest.

Grace.

In all the answers I received to that question, I saw the threads of longing for peace woven within the words.

Now those four weeks of Advent have turned into two and the pain and beauty of this season of waiting is in full swing.

In the midst of Advent, what do you feel like you need more than anything?

***

When I think of the opposite of peace my mind goes far in the other direction. Because the truth is, the brightest light of peace can morph into dark shadows of tragedy. And it happens in a second.

The thing about tragedy is we don’t get any warnings. It’s disruptive and destructive to peace.

Loss is always filled with sorrow, but we usually reserve “tragic” for something sudden, shocking, and unexpected.

When terrible things happen to us or those we love, we don’t have the benefit of hearing a dissonant musical score to warn us of what’s to come, to signal our hands to cover our eyes, to prepare the delicate soul for impact.

We just drive to the movies like we planned and then we get the phone call. We’ve not picked up on any clues along the way because there weren’t any. There is no rising tension. There is only normal life and then a ringing phone.

That’s the extent of foreshadow. A ringing phone.

Now, a year later, every time you drive by that certain spot where you were when you got that phone call, you’ll remember.

You’ll remember the garland and lights in the shop window in front of you, you’ll remember the look your husband gave you when you put your hand over your mouth, you’ll remember how he turned the car into the parking space next to Jason’s Deli.

But what you won’t remember is what it was like before the phone call. You’ll try to grasp for those normal moments, but now they’re gone.

In the midst of tragedy, what do you feel like you need more than anything?

***

Words from Isaiah keep coming back to me this week, the ones about predator and prey living peacefully together; the wolf and the lamb, the leopard and the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling, and a little child will lead them.

I can’t imagine it, can you?

But the idea of one day, this kind of peace happening in nature gives me hope.

Because right now, the kingdom of earth is rife with suffering and conflict. We see it in Syria and Iraq. We see it on our college campuses and inside the walls of our churches. We see it around our dinner tables and in the quiet places of our own hearts.

Sometimes it comes looking like the shocked face of a tragedy and other times it just looks like low-grade anxiety of a Tuesday. But the disruption of peace always seems to come in one way or another.

And yet, Isaiah 11 says there will come a day when the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

While tragedy erupts unwelcome into our lives without warning or invitation, hope for peace leaves hints and signs and evidence along the way.

God gives a hopeful vision for the future before it comes to be.

Abraham was told to leave without knowing where he was going. But God pointed to the stars in the heavens and promised so shall your offspring be.

Moses led the people out of Egypt without sure next steps, only knowing the final one-day destination would be the Promised Land.

Mary was promised a Son without the sure proof of a sonogram, the sound of a heartbeat, or a thick, colorful book of what to expect.

The earth was rife with suffering then as it is now. And yet.

“He did not wait till the world was ready, till men and nations were at peace.

He came when the Heavens were unsteady, and prisoners cried out for release.”

Madeleine L’Engle, First Coming

***

In Luke 17 the Pharisees asked when the Kingdom of God would come and Jesus said it’s already here.

“The kingdom of God is in your midst,” He said. It’s among you, within you.

They missed it because they were looking for the wrong signs.

They were looking for a king to sit on a throne, but God sent a baby to lay in a manger.

They were looking for warrior with a weapon, but God sent a son to a cross.

They were looking for power, but God sent humility.

God sent Peace to live among us and now, He lives within us. Yet we look around us and see evidence of struggle and we say there is no peace to be found.

Maybe we, too, are looking for the wrong signs.

***

While the kingdom of earth struggles and moans, the kingdom of heaven grows even in the darkness. It expands, it moves into the pain of the world not from somewhere out there but from the secret place within us.

Peace came to earth, to live among us and now, He lives within us.

How might He want to be born in us again today?

It’s the curious paradox of humanity, that we long for peace to come even as we believe Peace has come already.

We embrace the Prince of Peace who lives within us even as we look for ways to offer his peace to others.

We wait in the darkness, holding on to the promise, believing in the hopeful vision God gave.

We believe the vision of the promise fulfilled not because it seems possible, but because God is the one who gave it.

***

Most of you answered that question – what do you need more than anything during Advent? – from the perspective of an everyday traveler, moving toward Christmas, and not wanting to miss it.

Some carry long to-do lists and growing expectations.

Some carry painful anniversaries.

Some carry heavy burdens of loss.

Still others carry the joy of firsts – the baby! the marriage! the hope!

As we anticipate Christmas again this year, may we allow whatever we carry to rise up to the surface, whether it be grief, indifference, joy, disappointment, heartbreak, courage, or love.

As we acknowledge the colorful mix of our own humanity, may we offer it all to Jesus, joining one another in preparing Him room.

October passed by in a bit of a blur and I’ve been determined not to let that happen in November. Now, only days away from American Thanksgiving, I’m planning to enter into December with my whole heart. I don’t want to welcome hurry into my soul.

Here are five books (including affiliate links) that might help you enter into this Advent season with simple intention and quietness of heart.

Format: December 1 – 25; A few pages of reading each day, revealing another plot point in the story of Jesus’ birth

From the website description: “Drawing from the hallowed pages of Scripture and with an eye toward both wonder and ground-level detail, Behold the Lamb of God: An Advent Narrative brings to life the people, the places, and the earth-shaking significance of the greatest story ever told-the true tall tale of the coming of Christ.”

Why I love it: For several seasons now I’ve enjoyed Andrew Peterson’s Christmas Album and live show, Behold the Lamb of God. This book is that musical narrative in book form. Ramsey writes: “I wrote Behold the Lamb of God to hide scripture in the heart by way of the imagination.”

From the website description: “Through rich detail and vivid images, these moving meditations make Christ’s birth both intimate and immediate, allowing us to see Christmas from its original happening to its perennial recurrence in our hearts.”

Why I love it: I haven’t read this one yet but I ordered it to use for this year’s reading based on a recommendation. I like that, unlike some of the others, this one goes from December 1 all the way through to Epiphany.

From the website description: “Beginning with Jesse, the father of David, The Greatest Gift retraces the epic pageantry of mankind, from Adam to the Messiah, with each day’s profound reading pointing to the coming promise of Christ, so that come Christmas morning you find that the season hasn’t blurred past you but your heart’s fully unwrapped the greatest gift you’ve always yearned for.”

Why I love it: I chose this book to read during December two years ago. Ann’s voice was a warm and kind companion during the early morning moments leading up the Christmas that year.

From the website description: “Come, Lord Jesus is a quiet invitation to sit with the weight of waiting, and recount the faithfulness of God, to trace the hope of Christmas, and prepare the way for Jesus’ coming into the world, into our own hearts, into our everyday, ordinary time.”

Why I love it: As an author, I receive a lot of books for free in the mail. But when I heard about this one, I bought it with my own cash money. It was the description that got me – an invitation to invite Jesus fully into the tension of waiting. The theme of waiting has been on my heart for a while now and I look forward to letting Kris lead me through it.

From the website description: “These fifty devotions invite the reader to contemplate the great themes of Christmas and the significance that the coming of Jesus has for each of us – not only during Advent, but every day. Whether dipped into at leisure or used on a daily basis, Watch for the Light gives the phrase ‘holiday preparations’ new depth and meaning.”

Why I love it: Okay, so I’ve not read this one. But I’ve read the comparable book to this one for Lent, Bread and Wine. That book remains one of my favorites for reading during the Lenten season because of both the variety of contributing authors as well as the depth and perspective they offer.

***

I just realized all these books are blue. It seems fitting. Blue, in my mind, is the color of waiting, of the liminal space between the now and not-yet. I hope you’ll find a new friend among these recommendations. More, I hope this Advent season is one of hopeful anticipation of the coming of Christ in and around you.

“The question is not Can we heal? The question, the only question, is Will we let the healing power of the risen Jesus flow through us to reach and touch others, so that they may dream and fight and bear and run where the brave dare not go?”

– Brennan Manning, The Furious Longing of God

Yesterday, on the morning of Tuesday November 8, I sat on my mat in a studio full of other women, ready to do some deep stretching and thoughtful breathing. Our teacher asked us to rate our anxiety on a scale from 1-10 and I privately chose the number 7.

During the course of the class, the silence was continually interrupted by the sound of sirens outside. One after the other after the other.

Half-way through class I began to count and, by the time class was over, I was up to five. But that was only after I heard so many I started counting.

Waking up this morning just hours after the election results came in feels a bit like hearing the sirens in the silence. Because no matter how you voted or how you feel about the results, the fact remains that we, the People, are deeply divided.

As a woman who thrives on connection, this division breaks my heart.

I’m careful not to make a list of things anyone else ought to do, think, or feel this morning. I believe in the goodness of God, I do. But I also recognize the deep disappointment many of us have with God’s people.

Instead, I’ll simply offer up how I’m moving forward and encourage you to perhaps make your own list in time.

Allow myself to feel the way I feel.

Grief is a relentless companion. It will not tolerate being ignored. If we refuse to acknowledge the feelings of grief and sadness that may be present in us today, that grief will come out one way or another. I choose to bear witness to the grief rather than allow it to surface later in ways I have less control over.

Respect the right of other people to feel the way they feel.

Whether you are angry, relieved, sad, fearful, or a mix of all of these, I will respect your right to feel as you feel. We can’t argue someone into feeling the way we feel about things. No matter how we feel this morning may our emotions lead us to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly in the days to come.

Refuse to name-call.

For meto vilify is unproductive. It doesn’t sit well in my soul and is a burden too heavy to carry. For me, this is non-negotiable. Instead, let’s hold accountable.

Look for the helpers.

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’” – Fred Rogers

Just like Mister Rogers said, in times of uncertainty it’s important to look for the helpers. Deidra Riggs comes to mind as someone who is fostering important conversations with the upcoming One Conference in Nebraska. This is just one example of many.

Be a helper.

We have good work to do. We have named leaders to pray for. We have minority groups to stand beside and listen to and learn from. We have a responsibility to do the next right thing in love.

I’m pleased to welcome Shelly Miller here today as her new book, Rhythms of Rest, sings so well with everything we value here in our little Internet space. Shelly knows the importance of creating space for the soul to breathe and I’m deeply grateful for her message.

From a park bench, beneath a canopy of trees, I hear the distant sound of an ambulance siren and birds chirping in their various “dialects.” A middle-aged couple walks by, heads down, as if I am invisible.

Pulling out a cardigan, I wrap it around my shoulders, when a cool breeze chills and blows hair into my face. The sun slowly shifts, creating shadows, a signpost in nature that pulls my mind back to obligation. I begin mentally scouring my refrigerator and pantry for what I can reheat on paper plates for dinner.

For some, brackets of time alone on a park bench to journal the sights, sounds, and smells of a wide expanse in nature is an illustration of extravagant wastefulness. Or a lavish indulgence allotted those who are retired from work life.

What is this accomplishing?

Research reveals that when we relax, or enter into a window of daydreaming, the brain does not slow down or stop working at all, but rather many important mental processes happen during those times in the same physiological way the brain works when we sleep at night.

Accruing evidence suggests that these times of rest are important for recalling personal memories, imagining the future, and feeling social emotions with moral connotations.

In Sabbath, we allow our brain to make sense of our busy lives. We process what we have learned during the other six days of the week and apply meaning to what we’ve overlooked while moving at a frenetic pace.

Sitting on a park bench, I stare into space, replay conversations, wrestle through unresolved questions like a mathematician solving an equation. I reflect on previous decisions, and during introspection, mull over the events of the past few months. I rewrite negative inner dialogue into a positive, hopeful outlook.

Epiphanies come in the shower, alone on a quiet walk, staring out the window of my office, driving in a silent car, and while listening to the sound of bird chatter in Holland Park.

In a culture where it is common to attach value with utility, we train ourselves to feel good about our ministries, our church activities, sports teams, livelihoods, and parenting, as long as what we do provides a measure of usefulness and positive calculable outcomes.

In a busy world that prescribes more—more exercise, more diets, more involvement in community, more engagement on social media, more ways to make money, more education, and more resources for ramping up productivity—a rhythm of daily silence and weekly Sabbath is making a (quiet) comeback.

Solitude is a state of being, an isolation or aloneness that God uses in our lives for specific reasons. And solitude of the heart is an attitude of quietness; a state of living unguarded, confident, and stable despite circumstance.

The more we experience the work of solitude within us, we begin to identify the rested from the restless, the discontented from the contented, the broken from the whole; we begin to decipher failure, missteps, and successes through a heart aching for eternity

Have you trained yourself to pause?

Do you pay attention to your heart, warning you it’s time to slow down?

Or do you need someone to tell you to stop because you’re too busy to notice the warning signals?

Rhythmic pauses help us remember where we are going when life becomes crowded and disorienting.

Shelly Miller is a veteran ministry leader and sought-after mentor on Sabbath-keeping. She leads the Sabbath Society, an online community of people who want to make rest a priority, and her writing has been featured in multiple national publications.

We sit side by side in the early morning light, feet on sand, eyes to the horizon. The air rolls off the sea in bossy gusts, turns the pages of my book and my hair wild.

We took the short walk from the beach house together thirty minutes before, chairs balanced on our shoulders, walking so as not to spill our coffee. And now we sit to wait for the morning show.

To wait is the point.

Still, I catch myself staring at a particular bright spot on the horizon and convince myself it’s the tip of the sun. The bright curve of morning seems poised to rise up like a promise, but it just sits there, unmoving.

Turns out what I thought was the sun is only a reflection on a cloud.

What gives?Isn’t it time?

I close my book. Tap my foot. Exhale a sigh and watch the sky again.

Even here on vacation, where the actual point is to slow down and rest, I learn all over again how both my mind and my body are still addicted to hurry.

“In the act of silence you’re not waiting for God to make a move. You’re becoming aware of the moves he is making.” – Brennan Manning

It’s possible to value silence and solitude and still be waiting for God to make a move rather than simply becoming aware of the moves he is making.

It might sound like the same thing but, for me at least, it isn’t.

It’s the difference between waiting for and being with.

It’s the difference between a huffy exhale and a slow inhale.

It’s the difference between tapping my foot and closing my eyes.

Because guess what is always on time?

The sun rises up in all her glory and not one of us on the beach has a solitary thing to do with it. We can’t speed her up, slow her down, or stop her coming. God set the world in motion and we spin on and on.

* * *

That was back in June, in the middle of our family vacation. Ever since it feels like I’ve been “waiting for my soul to catch up with my body,” Eugene Peterson style.

Three months, really Emily?

I don’t know if it’s my age or a delayed recovery from publishing four books in five years or the travel from the South Carolina coast to the Italian countryside to the stunning land of Israel and back again. But lately I’ve become aware of a gap between my desire and my ability to sit still without an agenda.

I know this is all part of life, all part of the ebb and flow and rhythm of being a person. That’s why it doesn’t disturb me, not really.

I keep showing up in my morning chair even though I tap my foot more than I close my eyes. I continue to sit in the presence of Jesus even though it feels like nothing more often than something. I continue to believe that faith “is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (Heb. 11:1)

If you feel like you’ve been doing silence and solitude wrong, you’re not. Just keep on coming. Keep sitting and listening and refuse to carry shame when you fidget and fight and nothing seems to change. If you need a little help, you might enjoy these 7 days of still moments, delivered for free into your inbox for a week.